Trump warns Iran's new missile can reach Israel

Washington, Sep 24 (IANS) US President Donald Trump has warned the new missile successfully tested by Iran on Friday may be able to reach Israel.

“Iran just test-fired a Ballistic Missile capable of reaching Israel. They are also working with North Korea,” Donald Trump wrote on his personal Twitter account on Saturday, Efe news reported.

“Not much of an agreement we have!” the President added in his tweet, apparently alluding to the agreement signed in 2015 between Tehran and six international powers, including the US, on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme.

The President tweeted the brief message after Iranian media reported that Iran successfully tested its new ballistic missile, called Khorramshahr, with a range of 2,000 km, which was unveiled on Friday for the first time during a military parade in Tehran.

The missile was launched from an unknown location in Iran and a few hours after it was shown during the parade, the Iranian television channel Press TV released a video of the launch, on Saturday.

The Khorramshahr missile was paraded Friday, despite warnings from the US against Iran’s weapons program, in the presence of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and senior military leaders.

This new arms build-up is taking place despite the fact that Washington has imposed several rounds of sanctions against Iranian entities and individuals linked to the Tehran missile program in recent months.

This week, Trump left his allies in the lurch by announcing that he has made a decision on his country’s participation in the nuclear agreement signed with Iran in 2015, a pact that, according to his government, has clearly not met their expectations.

“I have already decided,” he told reporters about his stance on the Iran agreement during one of his meetings in New York, where he was at the UN General Assembly, without divulging his decision.

In his address to the UN General Assembly on September 19, Trump declared that the nuclear agreement is “a disgrace” that his government could abandon, “if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program.”

The nuclear agreement, signed in July 2015 by Iran and six major powers (US, Russia, China, France, UK and Germany), ended 12 years of conflict over the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear programme.